Computer telephony is based on digital communication across time division multiplexed serial data lines, known as "streams." A typical computer telephony bus provides 16 or more streams, which each have between 32 and 128 time slots. A computer telephony switch creates connections between two time slots in two streams by moving data from an input time slot to an output time slot.
It is known to use a Content Addressable Memory (CAM) to manage connections in telephony switches. As the number of streams and time slots increases, however, the access time of the CAM needs to decrease in order for the CAM to be able to switch these signals. For example, in larger systems of 32 streams with 128 time slots each, a switch must compare the address field and access the data in a total of 30.5 nanoseconds, which is a relatively short time given today's technology.